


Not Her

by angel_of_the_morning



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Black Siren joins the team and Felicity isn't happy about anything, Enemies to Friends, Female "Friendship", Female Friendship, Gen, Mutual Understandings, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 00:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10477689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_of_the_morning/pseuds/angel_of_the_morning
Summary: Black Siren's face is too familiar for Felicity Smoak to ever like.Felicity Smoak's face is too familiar for Laurel Lance to ever hate.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I found out Katie Cassidy was going to be Black Siren and I wrote this cause I celebrate by also making myself sad. Cause I don't know how to not. All the credit goes to Chrissykins, cause she told me the news and traded pages for this story.

Black Siren didn’t sit like Laurel.  Laurel sat like a lawyer, back straight and hands folded on the table, she sat like she was about to take on the world.  Black Siren slouched down, and stretched her legs out in front of her, and crossed her arms in front of her chest like a petulant teenager. The world could go down in flames, and Black Siren would accept it with apathy.  Yet, there she sat in Laurel’s favorite chair like she was Laurel.  She wasn’t Laurel, even if they looked exactly the same.  It’s been two weeks since Black Siren sat herself in Laurel’s seat, and claimed the name Laurel along with everything else in Laurel’s life. And Felicity hated having her around. 

 

Felicity hated Black Siren.  She hated the way Black Siren talked, the bored and superior tone she had when she suggested the easiest, more violent option.  She hated the way she dressed, the ridiculous vintage punk style the Earth-2 villains favored.  She hated that she didn’t eat like Laurel, that she didn’t move her head like Laurel, she hated her nose piercing, she hated everything about Black Siren.  But most of all she hated the way Black Siren thought she could just decide to become Laurel. Sure, she worded as “wanting to try out the whole being a decent person thing,” but Felicity knew better.  Felicity hated the way the others so easily took to having Black Siren around.  And she really hated the way she sat.

 

Felicity especially hated the way Black Siren would sometimes look at Felicity, like-- well Felicity didn’t know what Black Siren wanted when she looked at Felicity like she did.  She could feel it now, Black Siren was blatantly staring a hole into Felicity’s nice new dress from her spot at the conference table.  Not that Felicity was going to give her the pleasure of turning around and acknowledging Black Siren.  She hadn’t once.  Not once has she spoke her, or directly addressed her.  And she wasn’t ever going to.

 

Black Siren wasn’t allowed to leave the Bunker yet, so she had to be babysat and it was Felicity’s turn whether she wanted it to be or not.  Felicity sighed and slammed on her mouse once more.  She didn’t have any work to do, but she wasn’t about to leave Black Siren alone with the team’s tech.  She could make blow it up, or leave a doorway for whoever she was working with to get through, or download weird Earth-2 porn, or get crumbs in her keyboard... or something!  She gave up on her busy work, and put her screen to sleep.  The team didn’t need her at the moment.  From the reflective screen she could see Black Siren, sitting in Laurel’s chair, slouching and filing her nails.  Who did she think she was Shego from Kim Possible? Was she even trying to be Laurel?  Of course not, Laurel wouldn’t sit like that, wouldn’t file her nails while in the Bunker.  Black Siren wasn’t Laurel.

 

“Geez, I can feel the glare from here.  Like a little angry kitten you are, Sissy,”  Black Siren had stopped her filing and looked over to where Felicity sat.  She wasn’t smiling, she wasn’t frowning.  She had that same bored look she had about everything.

 

“I wasn’t glaring,”  Felicity said, glaring at the computer screen.  She sighed and turned around in her chair.  She looked Black Siren, straight down.  That made Black Siren smirk, another trademark she had.  Laurel didn’t smirk, Laurel smiled.  Felicity never got the purpose of smirking.

 

“So you can talk to me.  You just actively chose to talk around me.”

 

“I don’t have anything to say to you.”

 

“You don’t like me.”

 

“I don’t trust you.”  Felicity wished she had kept at her busy work.

 

“It’s because I look like Laurel.  You hate that I’m not her.”  Black Siren sauntered over to the stairs and draped herself over the railing.  She was still smirking, Felicity contemplated walking over and smacking her smirk off.  Instead, Felicity stayed in her chair and glared.

 

“I don’t trust you, because you’re untrustworthy.  You have tried to kill us more than once.”  Black Siren moved from the railing to a sit on the stairs.  

 

“You don’t like me because I look like someone you care about,”  Black Siren stopped smiling, “Did you ever stop to think you might look like someone I care about?”

 

“What are you talking about?”  Felicity wasn’t having whatever made up story Black Siren was trying to push.

 

“Come here,”  Felicity gave her another suspicious look.  Black Siren rolled her eyes, “Well I could come up there if you’d rather stay on your throne.”  Felicity got out of her chair and walked over to the stairs.  She took a seat next to Black Siren, the closest she had been since she thought she was Laurel.  Black Siren reached into her leather jacket pocket, and pulled out one of those old-school wallet albums.  She skipped past a few pages and stopped at one in the middle.  She passed the picture over to Felicity.

 

It was a picture of Laurel and Felicity, but it wasn’t.  They were young, no older than twenty-three.  Felicity’s hair is platinum blonde and blue, and Laurel’s was dirty blonde and pink.  They pulled each other close, and had huge smiles on their faces.  They weren’t Felicity and Laurel.

 

“I was in New York City for the first time. Sara and I had just split, she wanted to stay in Ivy Town.  It wasn’t for me, the whole normal thing she was trying out.  I left my car, locked in some corner.  Except when I came back, it was gone.  All I had left was my father’s old leather jacket, maybe fifty bucks, and my iPod. So I started walking, and I ended up in this old 24-hour dinner.  I’m in the corner booth, trying to send out all my ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibes, when she came up to me.

 

“Her name was Felicity Smoak-Kuttler, but I didn’t find that out until later.  She introduced herself as ‘Sissy Smoak’ then decided to slip into my booth for no reason.  Nearly every other booth was open, and she found me.  And she introduced herself and asked me if I wanted to do something fun.  So I ask her for some of whatever she’s smoking, and she tells me ‘now, angel eyes, I’m high on life, but I do have some pot if that’s what you’re looking for’.  Against my better judgement, I tell her who I am.  I was trying out Laurel Lance, and she called me ‘Lo.’ And I just decided to go with her.”  Felicity was surprised to find Black Siren had stopped talking to look at the picture again.

 

“What happened after that?”  Felicity asked.  Laurel looked at her again, and Felicity thought maybe she was seeing Sissy.  She blinked and that look was gone.  Laurel smiled.

 

“She took me to this twenty-four hour movie theater.  We spent hours watching those movies, riffing movies MST3K style.  In between hiding from ushers, and seeing what Sissy could pull out of her purse,” Laurel laughed, “She was a bit of a klepto.  She would pull out snacks, clothes, wires, books, and whatever you could think of.  God, she made me laugh that first night.”

 

“Anyway, about fifteen hours later we fell asleep and promptly got caught.  So we’re running for our lives, and we end up… well I have no clue where we end up.  Sissy asks me where I’m spending the rest of the afternoon.  I tell her I have no where to say, and she says I could join her.  So what she does is pull a laptop from her bag, and makes a reservation at the nicest hotel she could think of.  I asked her how we’d be paying and she told me some dude named Eddie Fyers would be treating us, he just wouldn’t know until later.  We spent two weeks staying in that hotel.  Eddie gave us the best food, took us shopping, and let us have the time of our lives.  And we shared back stories.”

 

“I told her about my mother disappearing after my fifth birthday, and my dad getting shot by his no good partner when I was nineteen.  I told her about walking the country twice with my sister Sara for five years.  I told her about Sara meeting Ray, and staying behind I  Ivy Town to be boring.  I told her how I came to NYC, like every other struggling artist to be a singer.  Gave this nineteen year old girl I just met my entire life story.  But she gave hers too.  Wanna hear it?”

 

Felicity nodded her head quickly, wanting Laurel to get back to the story.  Instead Laurel got up and stretched.

 

“Maybe tomorrow.  It’s getting late, and the team will have work soon.”  Felicity looked over at her monitor to see nothing had changed.  She followed Laurel instead.

 

“I got a reminder on my phone if they need us.  Keep going.”

 

Laurel smiled, “Fine, but I’m getting coffee first.”  A cup of coffee and a doughnut later, Laurel was back to her tale.  “So, Sissy was the daughter of a hacker and thief, and she was both.  That’s the most she ever said about either.  She was from ‘everywhere’ as she put it, which basically meant she moved around a lot as a kid.  Around fifteen years old, she had met this boy named Coop and run off with him.  She traveled with him for a few years, before he tried to throw her under the bus during a heist.  Sissy tossed him down first, and went off to find a new partner.  She says I looked like a good one, despite the fact that at the point I hadn’t done more than petty crimes.  Either way, I decided spur of the moment, to go with her idea.  We’d be the new Thelma and Louise.  Sissy and Lo.  We spent five years together.  Ghost Fox and Song Bird.  Two of the greatest thieves in the world.  We made our own rules, went wherever we wanted, and didn’t have to listen to anyone but each other.  But then things changed.”

 

Laurel got really quiet, and looked down into her cup, “Sara had a baby, so went to see my new nephew in Ivy Town and Sissy decided to stay behind in Gotham.  I told her she should come with me.  Even the best thief shouldn’t be left alone in that hell hole that was Gotham.  But she say ‘Now, Lo,  I can manage to keep myself out of trouble for like a week.  I’ll stay in and watch a Red Dwarf marathon or something.’  I remember laughing.  Sissy always made me laugh.”

 

“What happened?”  Felicity asked.  Laurel didn’t say anything, she looked down at her coffee.  Felicity heard her sniffle.

 

“I didn’t take her call,  I wanted to surprise her with this really nice vase I pinched from Starling Museum on my way out.  The door was locked when I got there.  That was the first clue.  Sissy never remembered to lock our door, said she didn’t need to with all the security features it had. When she had it installed she said, ‘Think about it, Lo, if a door has four locks, a voice code, and a retinal scanner do you really think people will try the doorknob first?’  God, Sissy made me laugh.  The house was dark, another sign.”  She sniffled again, Felicity saw a tear fall into her coffee.

 

“She was still alive when I found her.  Sissy smiled when she saw me,  even covered in blood, she smiled at me and gave me that ‘don’t worry, Lo’ smile.  I took her to the hospital, and she fought.  Almost looked like she was going to pull through.  She made it four whole days before she flat lined.  I only went back to our place once after that.  I took her favorite laptop and whatever weapons I could find.  I figured out what happened while I was gone.  Coop had come back around, said she owed him.  She helped him out and he killed her for it.  He just stabbed her and left her there.  Left my friend bleeding on the floor, when she hadn’t done anything she wasn’t told to do.  Left her and walked off like he hadn’t just destroyed someone’s life.”

 

Laurel looked at her hands, “I had my best friend’s blood all over me.  I held my only friend, while she died.  She was still warm, sometimes I think maybe if I hadn’t stopped for the vase, maybe if I had come a few minutes earlier…”

 

“It’s not your fault, Laurel.”  Felicity took her hand and gave it a squeeze, “You know that.”

 

“Oh I know that, Lis.  It was Coop’s fault,”  Laurel gave a small smile, that seemed more sad than twisted, “I found the bastard, too.  He was holded up in Central City.  I made him suffer good.  Sissy would’ve liked that.  He died as the particle accelerator went off.  He screamed as he died, and I started to scream after.  I got the better end of the stick don’t you think?”  Laurel put her coffee cup down, and tried to clean away her tears without messing up her make-up more.

 

“So, I was a meta, and I was alone.  I hid out in this little bungalow me and Sissy had in the Caymans for a bit.  Figured out my powers.  After I was under control I visited Sara and Ray and little Quentin for a few weeks, but it still wasn’t for me.  So, I went back to what I was good at.  I stole whatever I wanted, but it wasn’t the same without Sissy.  Zoom came to me after a bit, and I became one of his lieutenants.  I became Black Siren, named after the first painting me and Sissy stole together.  That’s when I met Reverb, Killer Frost, and Deathstorm.  They were cool.  Sissy would’ve liked them.  I got really close with Reverb, sex close.  Thought I could even love him someday.  He was fun, but then he got called away.”

 

“Then Zoom comes to me and tells me Reverb is dead, Killer Frost and Deathstorm were too.  I was surprisingly hollow at the thought that all my friends had died again.  The Flash had killed them, and even then I knew better.  I knew it was Zoom, but I went along with it.  He told me to come to this world, and raise a little hell.  That was cake for me.  He told me all about dear recently departed Laurel Lance, and said if I do a good job I could say here.  Earth-Two wasn’t long for the multiverse, and it wasn’t like I had anything left.  All my friends were dead, and my family were mostly strangers.  So off I jumped.  And low and behold I find all my loved ones are heroes in this verse and I’m the villain.”

 

“I sent months in a small, soundproof box.  With nothing, but my thoughts and some netflix.  And this little voice in my head that sounded like Sissy said ‘well if we’re all heroes why can’t you be one?’ and that sounded pretty good really.  This dimension needed a Laurel, and I saw a Laurel.  But the little Reverb voice reminded me that they locked me up for just doing what I was told and liking my work.  So, as you probably guessed the first thing I needed to do was get out of that bird cage because I had started to dress my angel and devil as if they were two separate beings from myself.  And because you can only watch Stranger Things so many times, before it stops being as good as the first time.  The answer is twelve times, by the way.”

 

Laurel leaned back in her chair and Felicity copied.  “Then, shock of all shocks, this weird hooded man springs me and tells me to pretend to be Laurel.  And I tried I really did, but do you know how much of a saint Laurel was?  I swear I was her for like six hours, and I thought my eye was about to start twitching or I was going to get a nose bleed or something,”  she paused, “No offense to Laurel.”

“It’s okay, I think it would’ve made her laugh,”  Felicity smiled.

 

“Seriously, her posture alone was driving me nuts.  But yeah, I ended up in another cage.  Talking with a woman wearing the face of the person I care about most, who looked at me with so much disdain I kinda hit the bitch switch.”

 

Felicity sighed, “Yeah, that’s my fault.  I wasn’t having the best few months, and you were just a target to take it out on.”

 

“I’ve decided to forgive you, tentatively.  If I ever just push you off a building for no good reason, you know why.  So I have my little freak out, and you give me a hell of a punch.  And I’m in another cage with nothing but angel and devil, Sissy and Reverb, as company.  Until I literally somehow convinced Team Arrow for the third-ish chance.  Now here I am.  Filling in the roll of--- who am I anyway? I’m not Black Canary, Dinah is the Black Canary.  Am I the new Speedy?  Cause I should tell you I’m not very good with a bow and arrow.”

 

Felicity laughed, “You’re Black Siren.  We just have to figure out what that means in Earth-1.”  They cleaned up their mugs, and shut down the upper level of the bunker.  Felicity and Laurel walked to the elevator.  Felicity looked at her, “You’re staying down with Curtis and Rene?”

 

“Yeah, I don’t think they’re big on another team girl hanging around the bunk beds though.”

 

“Bunk Beds really?  You have your own little rooms.”

 

“They  _ are  _ beds, in a bunker.  What else are they called?”  The two shared a laugh.

 

“You’re welcome to stay in my guest room.  Until we invite an identical cousin named Laurel Lance for you to be.  It's got everything you need.”  Laurel stopped smiling.

 

“You know, just cause you unlocked my tragic backstory, doesn’t mean you can just pretend to be Sissy and everything will be okay,”  she said harshly.

 

Felicity frowned, “I’m not trying to be Sissy.  Just like you’re not trying to be Laurel.  We’re just two people with the same faces as them.  Doesn’t make us the same people.  I asked you if you wanted the guest room cause it seems like you could use a little privacy, and I’m not in my loft much.”

 

“What does that make us?  Lis and Elle?  Similar, but still a little different”

 

“It makes us, Laurel and Felicity.  We’ll just have to figure out what that means eventually.” Laurel smiled again.

 

“Well, if it’s just a roommate situation I guess I could handle that.  I will be getting my own identity soon though.  Maybe I’ll pretend to be Dinah’s daughter or something?”

 

“I’m sure she’ll love that.  Nah, you’ll be some distance Lance, who just got strangely lucky with genes.”  They got into the elevator and quietly left the bunker, “So, what will it be on your first night as an honest to good Earth-Oner.  Big Belly Burger and Game of Thrones?”

 

“Well that’s a yes to Big Belly, who would say no to that.  But you’re going to have to fill me in on the other thing?”

 

“They didn’t have Game of Thrones on Earth-Two?”

 

“Not to my knowledge.  And I have a great deal of presumably nerdy knowledge thanks to Sissy.”

 

“Oh you sweet summer child.  Let’s go pick up Big Belly.  We’ll be on that couch for awhile.”  Laurel laughed at Felicity’s enthusiasm. 

**Author's Note:**

> I might follow this up with a part two in Laurel's POV someday. Maybe. Right now I'm tired and put of showering to get this out of my head. Comment and Kudos.


End file.
